Fallout: Mercenaries
by Jec94227
Summary: Well, here is the story of a small Mercenary company 2 years after the presumed death of the Lone Wanderer at Adams Air Force Base.
1. Chapter 1

The Citadel's laboratory was a bustle of activity, as groups of scribes monitored screens showing what data they could gather about Adam's Air force Base, while others were making last minute preparations and repairs to the captured Vertiberds and members of the Pride were finishing up their weapon and armour checks.

One junior scribe looked up in alarm as the Enclave radio channel he had been monitoring sudden;y crackled to life.

"Someone pick up! Brotherhood, I know you're monitoring these goddamn channels, so answer me!"

"Uh, who is this?" The confused scribe inquired.

"101. Get me Lyons, either one." The Lone Wanderer spat into the radio.

Moments later, both the Elder Lyons and Sarah Lyons were at the receiver. "Wanderer, why are you contacting us? You were supposed to remain silent for this mission. And why are you on an Enclave channel?"

"Missions been blown to hell, if you'll pardon my language. There are way more Enclave here than we thought. I'm currently holed up in the aircraft control tower and " the voice was replaced by a sudden volley of bullets, which was then followed by a heartbeat of silence and then a muffled sound of several grenades going off "and they've got me under siege. Lucky for me their communications gear was all stored up here."

Sarah's worry was visible on her face, but Elder Lyons was more professional, and immediately got to the problem. "So you're saying that you can't stop the orbital strikes?"

"Well, that's one bit of news I can give you, though how it happened is very unfortunate. Fawkes took the MIRV and as many mini-nukes as he could carry and blew the hell out of the transmitter, and most of the crawler as well." The Lone Wanderer's voice became tight with emotion as he continued. "He died in the explosion sir."

All members of the Brotherhood breathed a sigh of relief. "So what is your status, besides besieged? How long can you hold out?"

"As long as I have grenades I can cover myself while reloading, but I'm running out and the odd soldier that does make it up isn't going to replenish my stock any time soon."

"Would it be possible to send in a team to break the siege?"

"Negative Sir. Too many Enclave, and they could catch any group on foot, and have enough ordinance to take down any Vertibirds you could send in."

"So, there's no way to get you out?" Sarah spoke for the first time.

"Sorry Sarah. Looks like I'm stuck here. Only-" Another interruption, small arms fire and then a loud crump and the Wanderer was speaking again. "Only thing I can do now is take as many of them as I can with me. I've got a few mini-nukes left though. I'll make them pay." He promised. More bullets and then a scream as though someone had been sliced open with cold steel. All members of the Brotherhood looked shocked, thinking that they had just heard the end of the Lone Wanderer. "And Sarah?"

Sarah jumped at the voice of Caleb coming from the receiver. "Y-yes?"

"Don't do anything stupid. Just in case. I-" The transmission was cut off once again, and this time all they frantic scribes could raise on the channel was static.


	2. Two Years Later

2 Years Later

"Shitshitshit, why are they shooting at us?" Charles yelled as he dived into cover behind a pile of rocks as the bullets started flying.

"Fuck if I know buddy." Richard replied as he tried to ease his way into a good firing position at the car he was hiding behind.

"Enough chit-chat!" Roared Francis. " I can't hear myself think. Emily, what do you see?" He used the radio to call the young woman who was the marksman of this little four man squad. She had been hanging back a bit, providing overwatch, and wasn't being fired on yet.

"Six attackers. Two with rifles, three with assault rifles, looks like R91's, and the last guy has a shotgun." Emma paused. "They don't look like raiders sir."

"Alright. Disable the man with the shotgun, don't kill cause I want to talk to them. Just let them know you're here."

Emma's response was the loud crack of her Sniper Rifle firing, and the next thing they heard was a man screaming. Richard, who by know had his LMG set up, called out "He's hit in the leg."

Francis then used the silence to shout over to the Wastelanders who had attacked them "Listen, I don't care if you want us dead, but could you at least extend the common fucking courtesy of telling us why?"

"You know what you did, you Talon Company bastards!" A young woman's voice called back.

Charles, who by know had made his way over to the car beside Richard asked "Who the hell is Talon Company?"

"Dunno, probably some real mean guys judging by this."

Francis placed his assault rifle on the ground. "I'm going to stand up now," He shouted to the wastelanders, "So we can talk this out. We aren't Talon Company." Slowly, hands raised to show he wasn't armed, Francis stood up.

"Meet me halfway stranger." A man in his late twenties called out, placing his rifle on the ground as well. The two men met by the remains of a motorcycle, and the wastelander seemed to take in everything about Francis before saying anything.

"Well shit stranger. Seems we might have killed each other over a bit of a communication error." The man grinned and turned back to his followers. "Not Talon, stand down." He turned back to Francis and extended his hand. "The name's Ed."

"Francis. So who exactly are these Talon Company guys?" Francis asked, shaking the offered hand.

"Meanest sons of bitches in the Wasteland, after the Enclave of course. Normally we avoid them, but the just recently butchered a family who lived on that farm further north. Since your group came from that direction, and because your armour is so similar to theirs, we thought we had finally caught up to the murders."

Francis glanced down at his combat armour. It was black in colour but with a white, double headed eagle on the left breast.

"Yeah, Talon company has black armour with an eagles talons on the left side. You boys might want to change your logo before something like this happens again."

"Well, we just came from the north, heard there was plenty of fighting going on down here. HQ sent down three squads and a command group to make them some money. We just arrived last night and set up in that abandoned town by the farm you mentioned."

"Yeah, that was the Republic of Dave. Or former republic anyways. The leader, Dave, took a shot at a Talon patrol and they retaliated by going in and gutting the place. Midnight raid, the Republic never stood a chance. We only know what happened because one of the younger ones, Shawna, managed to get away. Seems the men were executed and the women and children sold off as slaves." He gestured back to his followers, to the young woman holding a hunting rifle. "That's her with the rifle."

"Well shit. If she wants to go back I guess we could clear out…"

"No worries. She has too many bad memories of that place. Anyways, we need to talk business now." Ed laughed at Francis' raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I move on real fast. So you have what, about twenty people in that old town?" Francis nodded.

"Eighteen." He corrected. Twelve frontline mercenaries and six command and support mercenaries made up the small detachment. "But I'm not in a position to be negotiating."

"That's all right; I just need you to take an offer to your bossman for me. Canterbury commons is south of here, and every caravan company in the wastes comes through there. You need any supplies, that's where you should go."

"Ok Ed, I'll let them know" The two men shook hands again and turned to leave.

"Well that's got to be the weirdest fucking thing I've seen." Charles muttered. "They start out shooting us and then try to sell us stuff."

"You said it Charlie." Richard agreed, packing up his LMG. "Here, take this 7.62 box. I got enough to carry already."

The Legionnaire Camp, also the former Republic of Dave, was now home for the eighteen weary mercenaries. It wasn't a half bad setup, certainly too heavily fortified for the average raider or slaver to want to take a shot at. And now that the work crew had actually reinforced the walls, nothing short of a large number of explosives would open this fort up. The rest had been mostly unchanged, though the "Museum of Dave" was now a storage shack for the medical equipment, food and other material goods that the small company would need to survive. One of the Dormitories was turned into an ammunition dump, holding neatly stacked ammunition boxes filled with 5.56 rounds, .32 bullets and there was a corner devoted to Richard and Dawson's 7.62 ammo boxes. Command had taken the "Presidential Building" and the others had been given the remaining Dormitory.

All this greeted the members of 3rd Squad as they returned from their strange patrol. Francis immediately made his way to the command post, while Charles Richard and Emma went to the barracks to slip out of their battle equipment and into some normal clothes.

"So what should we do to pass the time guys?" Emma asked, pulling her helmet off and freeing her dark blonde hair. Back home, she was one of the more lusted after members of the Legion, somehow having a curvy figure along with the muscle needed to break anything that got too close without her permission, as one poor man found out a year ago.

"Well," Richard started, eyeing her figure appreciatively, "I can think of something, but I'm not too sure it's appropriate…" he finished suggestively, leaning his lanky frame back on his cot, running a hand through his blonde locks.

"Oh don't worry Richard," Emma started, cause Richard to at first perk up in the hope that she was taking his awkward proposition well, and then frown as she continued talking. "If you wanna have some alone time with your butt-buddy Charles then you just need to let me know and I'll leave you two alone."

"Hey, if you're gonna make fun of Richard, could you at least leave me out of it?" Charles asked from his bunk, where he was cleaning his weapons, an assault rifle, a combat knife and an old officer's sword.

"Don't worry Charlie, you're on top." Emma threw across the room with a playful smile on her lips.

"Oh, well when you put it that way…" Charles said suggestively, and then broke into laughter along with Emma as Richard shook his head and left the barracks as Karl and Pierre from 2nd squad joined the laughter.

"When you children have decided to grow up and apologise, I'll be at the firing range." The dignity of his exit was marred as he tripped over the doorframe and stumbled out the door.

"Never gets old" Karl said in his deep bass voice. "Nuka anyone?" he asked as he opened the cooler he was sitting on. Charles raised a hand and caught the thrown bottle, as did Karin, leader of 1st Squad as she walked in the door.

"So why was Richard looking like he wants to murder someone?" She inquired and received guilty smiles from the assembled mercenaries. "Hmm, well smarten up you scruffy lot. Commander is calling a briefing in ten, so clean up and be ready to move out."

Twelve minutes later in the command building, the 18 members of the Legionnaire task force had assembled and waited for their commander to begin the meeting. Idle chatter rose from the assembled group until Commander Morrison made his way to the front of the group and they fell silent. Despite his somewhat chunky appearance, they all knew he was as quick as a bloatfly with his trusty .44 revolver.

"Alright, so we managed to find out quite a bit from our little scouting missions. First, as 3rd squad found out, we need to get in the habit of contacting any groups we run into before they spot us, since our armour looks a lot like another mercenary company, Talon Company, and nobody around here likes them too much. Second the area is absolutely ripe for contracts. The Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave are still locked in a war, so our info wasn't outdated after all. It seems that Talon Company has been hired by the Enclave to supplement their forces. The brotherhood has taken to recruiting the locals, and has hired a small operation calling itself Reilly's Rangers, who are smaller than we are but all of them are combat veterans from fighting the Enclave, Super Mutants and Talon Company with minimal losses." Morrison paused and gazed around the room at the attentive mercenaries. "So that is the local situation. Not many know we've arrived yet, but it will be safe to say that there will be offers coming in soon. From what our data tells us, the two sides have been fighting for little over two years, and they've started to run low on everything from people to bullets, so we are a sudden and valuable piece in this game, since we have a large ammunition dump and a dozen finely trained soldiers here. Direct anyone who asks about hiring you to me, and I'll make sure we get a favorable deal. Is everyone clear?"

"Yes commander." The group spoke more or less in unison.

"Good, now for the actual orders. 1st is on Guard detail, 2nd is going to scout the area for a suitable place for a new outpost. Plan to be gone at least a week, maybe more. Go south, maybe southeast, and try and find a good spot. Miguel, you know what to look for." The Hispanic man nodded. "3rd, you get the fun job. Head south to this Canterbury Commons. Officer Zweil will accompany you and try and work out a guard job for the caravans that supposedly pass through there. We'll be trying to get a discount, so if you can get that, don't worry about what you'll actually be paying. The longer we can stretch our supplies the more caps we can make." Both Francis and Zweil nodded "Alright, dismissed, get to work you lot."

"Yeah, I need some men to guard a food shipment by tomorrow afternoon. We get a lot of business from a small town just to the east of here, but you don't care about that." Charles, Francis and Zweil all gave a small laugh at Ed's blunt assessment. "Here's what you care about though; it's to guard the Brahmin and the traders for the trip to Tenpenny and back." He pulled out a map of the Capital Wasteland and pointed to where Tenpenny Tower was, in the southwest. Charles' eyebrows rose as he contemplated the distance. "Shouldn't take more than a week to get there and back. Unfortunately, I'm not in charge of paying you, that's their call. However, I do the negotiating, and you have told me what you're trying to get out of this, so you're fee will be split between caps and food. Deal?"

Zweil, who had been listening quietly, had found that what was being offered to be more than fair, agreed. Francis also nodded, since his squad would be doing the escort mission. He would be wanting a threat assessment later but that could be gotten from anyone with a bit of Wasteland knowledge.

Outside the diner where the meeting was taking place, Richard and Emma had been allowed to relax a bit. Emma had joined another woman, Machete, in a lookout post in a ruined apartment block. Both held sniper rifles, though Emma's was clearly in better condition. Machete's signature weapon however, was as pristine as though it had just come off the assembly line.

"So are you a good shot merc?" She had asked.

Emaa shrugged. "I suppose."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not dead yet." Emma replied, and both women laughed.

Richard, meanwhile, had decided to purchase a radio that seemed to be in good condition, though why he would waste his few caps on that nobody knew. There was a radio back at base, and every single settlement had at least one. As the negotiations finished and the group left the diner and entered the slightly overcast street, Richard ran up to his friend to show off his new toy.

"Hey Charlie, check it out."

"You bought a radio?"

"Obviously."

"Why? There's one at base already."

"Yeah but this one is battery powered and can be recharged by these solar panels in the back." Charles closed his eyes and sighed as he anticipated the next words out of his friends mouth. "Which means we can listen to music anywhere we can get a signal!"

"Okay, cut the celebration short there Richard. We've got a job, so listen up." He waved Emma over, and when she had joined them he continued his briefing. "We'll be guarding a caravan to Tenpenny Tower, over in the southwest corner of the Wasteland. Shouldn't take more than a week and we'll get paid in food and caps, but not until we finish the trip. That means supplies for the journey will be on us. We'll be staying in Canterbury tonight, since the caravan arrives tomorrow afternoon, may as well save the wear and tear on our boots. We're all loaded for an extended mission anyways. Questions?"

Emma was right to the point. "What sort of opposition will we be facing?"

"Well, there's the difficult part. Most wildlife will leave a group this big alone. Double edged blade there, since the only wildlife we'll see is these Yao Gui and Deathclaws. As for people, well there's raiders and maybe some starving wasters, since we are transporting food."

Richard was next "What route will we be taking?"

"Mostly direct, with a stop in Megaton to grab some of the fruit they grow there, then on to Tenpenny from there." Francis paused, as if waiting for any other questions. "Alright, Emma I want you sharp for the march so you get first watch. Charlie and Richard, you guys can choose who gets second and third." He stood as Charles and Richard played a quick gamer of Rock Paper Scissors. He was leaving when Richard triumphant cry of winning was interrupted by an angry tackle from Charles. By the time Francis got to the ruin where they would be sleeping, Charles had pinned Richard and had the other man relinquishing second watch in exchange for the pain to stop. Francis might have been worried if any of the other soldiers had fought, but Charles and Richard were as close as brothers and to his relief they were soon back to joking about Richard's new radio. He sighed and shook his head. "Children." He muttered from the lofty age of thirty, while the others were just five or six years younger than him.


End file.
